State Senators Bill Ketron (Murfreesboro), Lowe Finney (Jackson) and Joe Haynes (Nashville) HIGH SCHOOL CIVICS Part Eight: I'm just a bill So now you know what a state legislator does, know how a bill becomes law, know what a lobbyist does, and know what reporters are supposed to do. But you may be asking, "what kind of bills are we talking about here?" Here's an easy to understand example that actually happened: A few years ago the Memphis Police Department became convinced that a lot of stolen goods were making their way into pawn shops. They decided that, to crack down on crime, they should get a law passed requiring everyone who sold an item to a pawn shop to be fingerprinted at the pawn shop as a part of that transaction. That way, if it turned out that the property was stolen, they could track down the person who sold the stolen merchandise to the pawn shop. In the spring of 2000 the police departments (through their lobbyist) convinced a state senator and state representative to sponsor their bill. The bill was proposed and started to make its way through the house and senate committee system. A pawn shop in Newport Who do you think might have been opposed to this bill? Well, for one, the pawn shops, who felt like this would hurt business and harass their customers. So they hired a lobbyist, who met with several state lawmakers to make the argument that this was an improper infringement on peoples' rights. And among their allies in the debate were a private lawyer, who argued that the proposal was unconstitutional, and a Nashville lawyer whose clients were mostly Hispanic, who argued that the proposal would target immigrant families. The lobbyists argued, with some passion, that the bill, if passed, would "criminalize" everyone who used pawn shops. And they said that the bill shouldn't just apply to pawn shops. It should apply to any type of store that sold second-hand goods, such as old bookstores, jewelry stores, antique stores, and "flea markets." The pawn shop bill made it into the newspapers, and the debate on the bill climaxed one day in a very crowded house committee meeting. After a two-hour debate, the bill was voted down. The next year the bill came back. And, after a debate that was far less noticed in the newspapers, another bill passed and became law that allowed local governments in Memphis and Knoxville to pass laws requiring the fingerprinting. Here are a few points about this real-life example: A committee of the Tennessee State Senate * Despite the fact that the debate was intense on this bill, the final votes in the house and senate weren't all that close. So this example shows that a bill doesn't have to have a close vote tally on the house or senate floor to be really interesting. * There were lobbyists on both sides of the matter. The ones on one side represented law enforcement authorities. The ones on the other represented people who own small businesses, and who pay taxes. * The matter was debated fiercely, and went on for more than a year. And, in the end, a compromise of sorts was worked out, with only the pawn shops in the two big cities being affected. * As proposals go, the newspapers actually did a pretty good job covering this one. But in the end, the original bill failing got far more coverage than the later version passing. So even people who read newspapers avidly may have gotten the mistaken impression that pawn shops won this battle. The audience at a Senate committee meeting * This debate is not over, by any means. In the spring of 2006 the police departments tried to pass a bill making the fingerprinting law statewide. The bill failed. But the proposal will probably come back again. * This fingerprinting debate involved only one of the more than 2,000 bills proposed during the 2000 legislative session and one of the more than 2,000 bills proposed during the 2001 legislative session. Granted, not every bill resulted in this much debate. But it is safe to say that the fingerprinting bill was one of maybe a hundred complicated matters before the Tennessee General Assembly both years. We're going to shift our focus a bit now and talk about other important state government organizations that affect your life. Click here.